In Another World
by ThoseRedLights
Summary: Aperture have been known to perform out of the ordinary experiments, so when one ends up in the hands of a certain quiet girl, suddenly she's the one performing the tests. (AU)
1. Enjoying my Trip

It is the beginning of the summer holidays, and a young girl of fourteen sits in her room. She taps a pencil against her desk while she patiently waits for her netbook to finish updating. The girl hums a soft tune to herself, brushing some hair out of her face.

**A PROBLEM HAS BEEN DETECTED AND WINDOWS HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN TO PREVENT DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER...**

She stops reading there.

She knows that it isn't a virus: she is too cautious for that. No, she knows that _someone_ must have done something to it on purpose, perhaps as a little prank, but she has no idea how to work out who it was, so she just ignores it and promises herself that she will fix whatever caused it later.

While she is no computer genius, she can tell that it isn't anything to worry about, so she just reboots her netbook in Safe Mode. She isn't surprised when it works, and she just continues as normal, organising some files on the desktop before being drawn to the one thing that would kill her boredom for the time being.

The game starts up promptly after she clicks on the small icon on the desktop, and a still image of P-Body flying through the air greets her while the game loads in the background.

She changes the tune that she was humming to the peaceful yet eerie music of the title screen and clicks on the New Game button.

"_Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre_."

She smiles at the voice coming from the screen, immersing herself in the game. She looks up when she is asked to, and looks down. The voice asks her to stare at the art, and she does it. She's just playing along, and hits the buttons when she needs to.

And out of nowhere she begins to feel faint and dizzy. It is early in the morning though, and while she may feel groggy, she would never feel like that. This is something new, something different. Her eyelids are becoming too heavy and she feels overwhelmingly tired, so she just decides to close her eyes for a few seconds.

Nothing bad would happen.

* * *

**A/N: Oh whoa...**

**This story has managed to hit 25 followers and 19 favourites at the time of writing this! SQUEEE**

**So, to celebrate, I have rewritten all the chapters of the story to fit my current writing style, and added a couple extra ones. Now, if you read IAW before I made these changes, you'll know that a lot has, well, changed! Don't worry though. I am keeping the same storyline, but these changes should clear things up that weren't mentioned in the original draft that really should have been.**

**Anyway, thank you so much for reading this! I really appreciate it. Nowadays, getting noticed on the archive can be difficult, so I am over the flipping moon. XD**

**See you next chapter when the story REALLY begins. **


	2. Why is Wheatley in my Room?

"Hello? Are you in there- _IS_ there even anyone in there?"

_BANG BANG BANG..._

I open my eyes, greeted by a weird, fuzzy feeling. The feeling is indescribably sickening, and it is like every single drop of blood has gone to my head: like if you get out of bed and stand up quickly, but way worse.

"_Hello_?"

I moan as I scramble upright in panic. _That voice... That voice it- it sounds _familiar.

And then I look around. I appear to be lying on a bed covered in mouldy, unmade sheets. The lamps on the wall beside it are deteriorated and rusty. In front of me is a grey wall with palm-tree wallpaper, and the ceiling looks so cracked that I really am surprised that it hasn't fallen down. The air is stale and thick with dust. I cough.

"I-I can hear you in there, but uh, guess what? I-I don't have arms. So, if you want to, to get out, you're going to have to open the door first."

I push myself off the bed, my legs still numb and asleep, and I stumble over to the only thing in the room that isn't grey: the door.

My hand fumbles around the cool handle until I finally hear the click I is waiting for.

"Are you all alright in there? I'm assuming that you do have arms, so... Go ahead and open that old door there. Unless you, of course, don't have a-AAAAAAAGH!"

The door swings open quickly, and I have to step back to stop myself from getting hit. Outside the door? Blackness. Nothing. Just a familiar ball-shaped- thing- with a glowing, blue light for an eye...

I refuse to believe it. My brain is trying to ignore it, trying to hide the fact that I'm in a game. I just can't be. It has to be a dream.

I look down at my hands. I count the fingers... 8.

8 fingers, 2 thumbs- to rephrase; they are normal. Not distorted, not shiny, not glittery: just normal.

"Um," he laughed, nervously, "What are you doing? Because if you want to get out of here, you're going to have to speed up, okay?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my reflection in the blank screen of the TV. It isn't me, though. It can't be. She's looks about 30, and way taller than me, too. It- It just doesn't make any sense.

"A-are you going to hurry up?"

Wait... Can I... Can I speak?

"_H-Hello... There._..?" I _can_ speak! Ha! It- it just sounds so _weird_. I haven't heard my voice in a long time, but it sounds way older than it should.

_I've aged, I must have. But... How?_

"Please prepare for emergency evacuation-" the Announcer begins, but the rest of it is drowned out by Wheatley's yelling.

My breaths suddenly become more shallow and rapid at the same time.

_This is a game. I am in it. I am in... A game. _

_Nope. Haha. Nope nope nope NOPE. I... Am just going insane. Because I am not in a-_

"-STAY CALM! Alright! Just... Stay calm. Prepare, he's just telling us to prepare. It's all fine."

"Okay. Umm... I'm going to attempt to move this facility to the nearest docking station now. I'd grab the nearest _stable_ object, y'know, if I were you. It _might_ get a little bit bumpy." He slides across a rail, which I've only just noticed is there, up into some flaps in the ceiling. The room begins to shake and I feel it _lit up_. I don't even have the strength to scream. "Are you alright down there?" He sounds muffled, and the words are barely recognisable. He emerges out of the flaps. "Most test subjects, as you may know," he pauses to gesture at me, his voice clearer, "experience some, umm, _cognitive_ deterioration, after being here for a few months. Weeeeeell, you've been under for, err, a _little_ bit longer, and it's not out of the question that you've got an almost _unnoticeably small_ case of serious brain damage. But DON'T panic, alright, because it's only minor serious brain damage, and I'm sure you're alright." And once again, he disappears up into the ceiling.

Then the room begins to crumble as it teeters to my left, the walls cracking and splitting. I look out of one of the gaps and see what I can only describe as a maze of rooms in piles. The floor is next to go, and bits smash off as the room is slammed into another.

"Aaah, see, I hit that one."

My stomach lurches as I slip and fall, just missing a wide hole in the floor.

I scream, taking heavy breaths. Slowly, I pull myself up off the cold floor, the room trembling in transit. I am unsure if he even heard me over the sound of screeching metal.

"Okay, look. I wasn't planning on bringing this up, but I'm in some pretty deep trouble here."

"I'M NOT SUPRISED" I yell, my voice squeaky after the amount of time that it went unused. I right myself and head straight for the bed, which is surprisingly one of the few parts of this room left.

"A-are you still holding on?"

I gasp as the wall behind the bed shatters and crumbles. Plaster fills the air.

"The reserve power ran out, so the entire place forgets to wake up the bloody test subjects. And of course _I'm_ not told. Nooooooooo... Why should I be told about the life functions of TEN THOUSAND BLOODY TEST SUBJECTS THAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING AFTER?! And how do think the management will handle this sight when he comes down here and finds ten thousand flipping vegetables? _Almost... There..._ Just remember though: _if_ anyone asks- and nobody's going to ask, but if they do, tell them that the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. Alright? Not- you know what I mean. LOOK OUT."

A piece of metal rips through where the door used to be. In the distance I can see a large, fragile wall with some unreadable words on it. Okay, so they aren't unreadable, but they are if you're in a moving bedroom in the middle of nowhere, being driven by an idiotic piece of software.

"On the other side of that wall is an old test with a piece of equipment that's fairly vital to our escape. _Just... Need... A..._ Docking station! Perfect!"

There is a loud thud as the room hits the wall, cracking off more of the remains of the poor relaxation chamber.

"Good news. That is NOT a docking station."

"Wow."

"I'm just gonna-"

_Smash._

"Attempt a-"

_Smash_

"Manual override-"

_Smash._

"ON THIS WALL."

_SMASH._

I hug part of the scaffolding and close my eyes until the impact sweeps me off my feet and I fall backwards onto the bed. My arms begin to sting. I am certain that I cut my leg.

When I open my eyes, I see Wheatley gesturing to a gaping hole in the wall that leads to another room. The sides were covered in moss and plants and it had a glass floor.

"You made it, you know what- that's fantastic! Just head on through there."

As soon as I put my weight on the glass, it gives in and I slip, falling right through and landing on my feet without any damage to my legs.

_Oh, long fall boots_. _Should've known._

"Are you okay down there?" His voice startles me.

"Gah... I guess so. Could have been worse." It hurts to speak, and it feels so unnatural, but I don't care. This time, I need to communicate.

_I don't belong here._

I am in a videogame. I only have _one life_. I can't just turn on Developer's Console and God Mode and Noclip my way out. I have to legitimately go through the game.

_I have to stay alive._

* * *

**A/N: Thank you, reader, for reading this far. **

**I am happy with the way that these re-written chapters are coming along. Now for any of you confused with the fact that the character (who I will not name, but all of you know) has aged 16 years, she hasn't aged mentally, only physically. I'll only give away that much.  
I hope that at least one person here knows how this is possible, as I am going by a list of facts stated by Cave, and a project for BYDTWD that I'll explain next chapter.**

**-ThoseRedLights**


	3. Heavy Cubes, Awesome Portals

**A/N: If you haven't read the updated versions of the last two chapters- please do! I have rewritten them and cleared some things up, so read them before this one :3**

* * *

For what felt like a good hour, I brushed bits of dry plaster off my jumpsuit. Sometimes my clumsy fingers wouldn't help, but just make it worse, and already I was close to giving up. I honestly think it's a shame that my clothes are already shredded in places; I quite like them, and at least they aren't grey.

Surrounding me is a glass cage-type-thing, bordered with thin, translucent white stripes about a metre off the ground. The glass room has few objects: a simple toilet, a futuristic bed, and a table with a clipboard, some pages and a radio on it. The radio is cold to the touch, with dirt unreachably far into the cracks in its rounded surface. My first thought is to see if it plays the goofy Still Alive song like in the game, however I decide to chuck it into the toilet for fun.

Outside my cage is no more interesting, with chipped panels making up a large room with a corridor-like exit lined with overgrown plants and vines. I think they're trying to take over the walls or something.

"Hello, and again, welcome to the aperture Science Enrichment Centre," says a somewhat cheerful male voice from... Somewhere... "We are currently experiencing technical faults as a result of failures with either the facility, or the surface that are unfortunately beyond our control."

I fiddle with an overgrown potato plant that had spread over the floor. Surprisingly, its leaves are moist and cool, despite the dry, metallic taste, lingering in the air.

I'm still having an argument about reality with myself. Half of me thinks that I've lost it, but I keep telling myself that, unfortunately, it's true.

_This is actually going to happen... And I can't do anything about it... _

I try and think of something else.

"However, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages are designed to give instructional and motivational support during testing, so that Science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social or structural collapse. The portal will open and emergency testing will begin in three. Two. One."

A pulse of warm energy surges through my body, leaving a tingling sensation, much like when you have pins and needles in your leg or your arm, only without having to deal with the pain.

And then I see the portal.

A me-sized oval, one that looked way better than in the game, opens up on the wall. It glows faintly: a vibrant orange unlike anything else I've ever seen before. I feel when I am near it a warmth reminding me of a fireplace, and my curiosity guides me inside- to my surprise, it is totally safe.

The feeling however, is disappointing. I was expecting a bit more from the intra-dimensional gate, and it was just like walking normally. Nothing special.

Instead of stopping, though, I step though the corridor, convincing myself that I'll be home soon. I am making a quick mental decision to avoid running though, as I know how the story will play out, and that I'll need the energy to make it through 'The Escape' with as little cuts and bullet holes in me as possible.

At the end of what I'd described as a corridor, (yet is only about 2 and a half metres long,) there is a circle-shaped door that reminds me of an elevator. It has a little blue stickman on it. It sparks when it opens, and it seems the same thickness as an elevator, too.

Inside is almost identical to where I stand- only it is thinner with a cube and button. No corridors, but a lot of vines... And puddles of liquid that I am certain are anything _but_ water.

The Announcer speaks up again, "Cube and button based testing-re-re-re-mains an important tool for Science, even in a dire emergency." His voice sounds so happy, despite the subject.

Still, I walk over to the cube and run my hand along its thickly painted side. It feels all bumpy, like the person who made it had made a mistake, but coated it with extra paint to try and pass it off as flawless. It is heavier than it looks, and I can just about heave it off the ground.

It makes awful scratching noises as it occasionally grazes the floor.

"If cube and button based testing caused this emergency, don't worry. The odds of this happening twice are very slim."

I have an idea. I sit down with my feet against the cube. My arm begins to sting in contact with the suspicious liquid. It also washes the bits of the relaxation vault out of my jumpsuit- it is like a sponge is soaking up all the pink and scattering it inside the puddle_._

Instead of getting up however, I begin pushing the cube with my feet. I guess it makes sense as humans have larger muscles in their legs than in their arms.

My head is filled with scraping noises until the cube is on the button, and the door opened with a faint beep and a loud spark.

Behind another door I could see the blueness of an Emancipation Grid, and after getting off my butt and walking up to it, I put my left hand through to see if it was safe...

While I wait for something bad to happen, I look around. Everything is still mucky and rusty, but at the end of the room I can see a not-so-rusty, small cylinder lift made out of glass.

_Oh, my hand. _I tentatively bring my hand up and out of the Grid...

I study it closely. Judging by the fact that it hadn't fallen off and instead is experiencing the same tingling sensation as when the portal opened, I presume it to be safe. I still walk through with my eyes closed... Just in case.

But hey, I did it! I had pushed the cube!

Of course, the Announcer pipes up, but I am too busy celebrating my victory to pay attention.

* * *

**A/N: Making slow progress with re-writing this. I think I may have cut out a few words, too, but eh... I don't know.**

**I'm deleting old Chapter 4 as I haven't finished new Chapter 4 yet. I hope to get that done soon, but I have an animation due and some requests I need to draw on DeviantART, so I don't know when that might be. **

**Firstly, in case you can't tell, this mystical child telling the story is AU Chell. So, why is she 14? Well, let's just go back to the Cave Johnson tests to when Cave mentions that symptoms of asbestos poisoning showing a medium latency of 44.6 years. He then follows this by telling you that if you're thirty or older, you're laughing. This would have to mean that 74.6 was the life expectancy in 1957. While we don't know exactly when Chell was born, in 1980, a female in the US could live up to 77.4 years. GLaDOS tells us that Chell has 60 more years to test, which would make sense if she was 14 as she would live to just under the life expectancy.**

**This evidence is supported by the teddy bear seen in the comic by the relaxation vault.**

**But if this is the case, we struggle to work out how she aged. That is, until we look at Chell's BYDTWD project, in which she mentions using a 'secret ingredient' from her dad's lab. What if the same ingredient was used to age her like it made the potato grow, just so she would be fit for testing? I have no doubt that it wouldn't be good for her, so that would explain her living a couple years below the life expectancy, but I don't know. Feel free to disagree. **

**I hope that I'm writing it like a child, anyway. I'm trying to be light-hearted, but I have no idea if this is coming across as childish as the only feedback I got from intheBlue was 'It's good' when I emailed it to her. XD**

**Oh wow. This A/N is over 200 words, so I'm going to go now.**

**-ThoseRedLights**


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